32. Chapter 32 #3
“Asking around after the ferryman.” Finn settled back into a rumple of blankets.
“Talking to the demons our father spent his last few weeks with. It was really very difficult to get much information out of them in the beginning because they all thought the rest of us would pick up where you left off. We had to be subtle, something you’d know little about.
Careful flattery and edging into the more delicate topics; none of it could be rushed or overdone.
Protasia told me the ferryman’s always struck a bit of a melancholic figure.
” A thoughtful pause, his eyes on the canopy.
“He hasn’t had an easy time of it here.”
“You feel sorry for him?” Remy asked, with a throb of anger that made my voice shake.
Finn cut his gaze back to me, one brow raised.
“You need to at least try to understand your opposition,” he said, after a beat or two of silence.
“The ferryman is different from the rest of us. He’s isolated because of the In Between.
He isn’t entirely demonic and he’s certainly not divine.
He may answer to us but he’s always been treated as other here.
Maybe he grew tired of it. Maybe he was promised something priceless, a new life somewhere he hasn’t dealt with millennia of disdain.
If angels can change their faces I’m sure it wouldn’t be any trouble at all to grant a new one to an accomplice.
I imagine if I were the ferryman I’d feel bitterly entitled to a life free of such a lonely duty.
I might like nothing more than to put on a new face and begin anew.
Maybe he’s been stockpiling all this coin to start over somewhere in the human world. ”
Remy, who I had felt prickling with irritation the more his brother spoke, wrenched my jaw apart. “It sounds like you’re taking his side.”
“I am taking his side,” Finn said sharply.
The fat, dull gold candle on the bedside table hissed as its flame burned brighter.
“How else would I understand his motive? I’m sure it’s very satisfying to throw tantrums and let loose tides of damned souls, but it doesn’t get you any information.
Anger makes you stupid. It took us years to put right what you did; you have no idea what it was like for the rest of us after you’d gone.
I don’t suppose you ever stopped to consider that while you were staggering around with that giant chip on your shoulder. ”
No, I said when I felt a bite of frost in my palms and an anger that wasn’t mine swell in my chest. Leave it be. It sounds like you left a huge mess behind for your brothers to sort through, they’ve a right to their anger just like you—
Finn was looking at me as if he knew perfectly well Remy was on the cusp of a rage in my head, his golden eyes glowing and steady and locked on mine.
Angling my gaze away, I said, Just calm down before you say anything you’ll regret. I’m sure you have more questions. If you start some stupid fight you’ll never have them answered.
Remy drew my fingers into fists for a few seconds. One moment tiptoed into the next as I sensed Finn’s eyes roaming over me. Then the brilliant fury in my chest slid back down the spectrum to a cold and icy gray, and when next Remy assumed control of my tongue, my voice was colorless and flat.
“What else? That can’t be all you’ve turned up.”
“Well, I was able to procure a more complete statement from the woman our father had been with the night he first saw the light down by the In Between—”
“How did you manage that?” Remy cut in. “She never told me anything.”
“I asked her one night in my bed a few years ago.” A thin smile up at the canopy at Remy’s noise of disgust. “If I avoided every woman our father ever slept with, I’d have to take up with the sheep out back.
His fling with her lasted a fortnight, right up until he died.
He had to have told her something. And he did.
You weren’t the only one who’d noticed the coin discrepancy. ”
“Did he keep records? I never found any when I went through his things.”
Finn turned a hand palm-up, his eyes smoked with gilt shadows. “If he had, they were only in his head.”
“If you don’t think Luceric will ever show himself again, why have you been out with the humans?”
“It can’t just be us keeping an eye out for him.
If ever he’ll show himself, it won’t be here, it’ll be out there, with his little acolytes, with humans who might beg his favor.
” Finn shrugged elaborately. “I look angelic enough. I might not have wings but all the gold doesn’t hurt.
Out of all of us, Casper and I are the only ones who might find mortal help.
I told them I’m Luceric’s half-human progeny.
They promised to light fires for me if they hear news of him, if they’ve seen him.
He won’t be easy to miss if he’s flitting around showing off. ”
“How would he be easy to find?” I asked. Finn gave me a look as if exulting in something adorable I’d done, like I was a child showing off a drawing. “I thought they were invisible when they moved amongst humans.”
Finn ran a hot, idle palm up my calf, like he hardly knew what he was doing, though there was a wicked gleam in his eye.
“They usually are, but they all leave traces, signs, if you know what to look for. His is light. Overbearing white light. Supposedly for the brilliance of his mind. From what I’ve heard, he hasn’t been inactive.
Valic says the coin disparity hasn’t stopped.
If the ferryman’s still allowing souls to be stolen, they’re not completing the swaps anywhere near Hell anymore.
Probably at the head of the river, though the ferryman would have to be involved with the actual handling of the souls up till the end…
I don’t know. I’d heard promising rumblings about The Crossing before Valic lit that fire to call me home.
Might be any day. He won’t slip through our fingers again.
I think I have enough evidence to bring to the council, but I don’t want to wait on their measured response.
I doubt they’ll deal with Luceric the way he ought to be dealt with.
” Finn flicked an amused glance through my eyes and into his brother’s.
“Do try to be a good boy, now. It would be a shame if you were in a Frost cell when word gets back to me. It’s not every day one gets to kill the new divine overlord. ”
“Luceric is a fucking scribe,” Remy snapped. “It’s not up to him to play God.”
“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Finn said, fluent and velvety. His gaze was back on the billowing canopy above our heads as his absentminded fingers probed my leg. “There isn’t any God anymore so they’re all trying to play.”